I'd be surprised if there was a single American who had the CIA Factbook as the deciding factor in determining their vote. It being shutdown is more evidence of how broken the American political system is rather than an indication of the will of the people.
As a single issue, probably not. However, the meta-issue that they did vote for was eliminating anything the government pays for (other than military, ICE, or related to drilling oil)
The parent's point seems to be that since most voters of both corporate parties have pretty much universally internalized and accepted they're voting for the "lesser of two evils," it's safe to conclude our political system is captured and has been for decades. Furthermore, 1/3 of people refusing to vote is not solely out of laziness. Many of them have concluded the system is FUBAR.
We're given two shit options which come about through a broken primary process and is reported on by monopolistic media. The news media and social media is siloed in such a way that people filter into one of two corporation-approved spheres of groupthink. These two spheres manufacture consent for each other in numerous ways, one of which is exemplified above. The good cop/bad cop setup makes it look like things are constantly getting broken only to have the illusion of being re-fixed by the other group, as measured by a pre-approved narratives that are disseminated.
The COVID pandemic is another great example. Sadly the CDC has been a disgrace under all recent administrations of both parties and has lots of blood on its hands:
Almost as if capital interests are running the show. But what are we fighting about in 2026? That's right, whether we should or should not be affiliated with the WHO, and to what extent our CDC should be funded. Two broken institutions and a performative fight about them. Meanwhile millions have/will see their grave earlier than they otherwise would have, thanks to long COVID (many of whom will never even make that connection, including their doctors who were spoonfed the "vax and relax" / "back to normal" messaging in service to an archaic consumption-based economy.
Maybe in the philosophical sense in that this is what their vote wrought, but there is absolutely no way to conclude that people wanted their institutions dismantled. The number of Americans who voted for Donald Trump was nearly identical in 2020 and 2024 once we compensate for population growth (22.4% of the population vs 22.7%). Anyone making drastic conclusions on the will of the people is just making something up whether they are conscious of that or not.
Right, World Factbook single issue voters probably don't exist.
That aside, something that frustrates me about US politics is that I rarely see any evidence of consideration given to taxpayers who want value for their money as opposed to having their taxes cut.
I pay taxes here. I like it when those taxes spent on wildly ROI-positive initiatives like the World Factbook.
The Trump lot appear to be killing off a huge range of useful things that I like getting in exchange for the taxes I pay.
I think a tremendous amount of people want value for their money. It's one of the reasons so many people talk about cutting government spending where it's wasteful, operating with a balanced budget and reducing the trillions of dollars in debt that we've accrued...which will eventually devalue all of our money.
Sure, but this is based on a fundamental trust in governments ability to spend money effectively. The ineffective spending has been in the news way more than the effective spending, so some people take this to mean all of the spending is ineffective.
I don’t know how to square this skepticism of government against very vocal “patriotism” coming from the trump camp, but humans can contain multitudes, I guess?
wouldnt it then be significantly better if you and others who want "value for their money" spend your own money making a world factbook, and then let people who dont much care not spend on it?
isnt this fair and equitable? you wouldnt pay for your neighbors lawnmower or cybertruck either?
I'd be surprised if there was a single American who had the CIA Factbook as the deciding factor in determining their vote. It being shutdown is more evidence of how broken the American political system is rather than an indication of the will of the people.
> I'd be surprised if there was a single American who had the CIA Factbook as the deciding factor in determining their vote
That's just the specifics: Steve Bannon explicitly made it clear that one goal was to "dismantle the administrative state"
Bannon is a global security threat, and a dangerous ideologue far surpassing Dugan
As a single issue, probably not. However, the meta-issue that they did vote for was eliminating anything the government pays for (other than military, ICE, or related to drilling oil)
The parent's point seems to be that since most voters of both corporate parties have pretty much universally internalized and accepted they're voting for the "lesser of two evils," it's safe to conclude our political system is captured and has been for decades. Furthermore, 1/3 of people refusing to vote is not solely out of laziness. Many of them have concluded the system is FUBAR.
We're given two shit options which come about through a broken primary process and is reported on by monopolistic media. The news media and social media is siloed in such a way that people filter into one of two corporation-approved spheres of groupthink. These two spheres manufacture consent for each other in numerous ways, one of which is exemplified above. The good cop/bad cop setup makes it look like things are constantly getting broken only to have the illusion of being re-fixed by the other group, as measured by a pre-approved narratives that are disseminated.
The COVID pandemic is another great example. Sadly the CDC has been a disgrace under all recent administrations of both parties and has lots of blood on its hands:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
Unfortunately the WHO has similar issues:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/comments/1q87aki...
Almost as if capital interests are running the show. But what are we fighting about in 2026? That's right, whether we should or should not be affiliated with the WHO, and to what extent our CDC should be funded. Two broken institutions and a performative fight about them. Meanwhile millions have/will see their grave earlier than they otherwise would have, thanks to long COVID (many of whom will never even make that connection, including their doctors who were spoonfed the "vax and relax" / "back to normal" messaging in service to an archaic consumption-based economy.
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Maybe in the philosophical sense in that this is what their vote wrought, but there is absolutely no way to conclude that people wanted their institutions dismantled. The number of Americans who voted for Donald Trump was nearly identical in 2020 and 2024 once we compensate for population growth (22.4% of the population vs 22.7%). Anyone making drastic conclusions on the will of the people is just making something up whether they are conscious of that or not.
2 replies →
Right, World Factbook single issue voters probably don't exist.
That aside, something that frustrates me about US politics is that I rarely see any evidence of consideration given to taxpayers who want value for their money as opposed to having their taxes cut.
I pay taxes here. I like it when those taxes spent on wildly ROI-positive initiatives like the World Factbook.
The Trump lot appear to be killing off a huge range of useful things that I like getting in exchange for the taxes I pay.
I think a tremendous amount of people want value for their money. It's one of the reasons so many people talk about cutting government spending where it's wasteful, operating with a balanced budget and reducing the trillions of dollars in debt that we've accrued...which will eventually devalue all of our money.
Sure, but this is based on a fundamental trust in governments ability to spend money effectively. The ineffective spending has been in the news way more than the effective spending, so some people take this to mean all of the spending is ineffective.
I don’t know how to square this skepticism of government against very vocal “patriotism” coming from the trump camp, but humans can contain multitudes, I guess?
1 reply →
RIP Carmen Sandiego players.
wouldnt it then be significantly better if you and others who want "value for their money" spend your own money making a world factbook, and then let people who dont much care not spend on it?
isnt this fair and equitable? you wouldnt pay for your neighbors lawnmower or cybertruck either?
4 replies →
I think it's a pretty strong condemnation of the CIA that they can't find something more important to flamboyantly kill though.
https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/13/budget-pol... (you can stop reading after the first couple paragraphs, it goes into federal budget politics circa 2013)
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nope, us Americans are truly the kind of people to vote for him, no matter how bad a reason each of them had
Very much "that's not who we are! ... Checks history book, oh, oh ,oh my".
Much more apt to say "that's not who we aspire to be'
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